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Berlin-based FinTech lemon.markets has announced a strategic partnership with Optio Incentives, a Norway-based platform for employee equity compensation management. The collaboration integrates lemon.markets’ brokerage and custody infrastructure into Optio’s solution, enabling a fully digital experience for employee share programs in Germany, including one adopted by a DAX-listed company.
Through the partnership, Optio Incentives now offers a locally optimized equity compensation platform supported by lemon.markets’ BaFin-licensed brokerage infrastructure. The joint offering allows employees in Germany to manage shares received as part of their salary packages with full regulatory compliance and minimal friction.
Equity Compensation Meets Modern Brokerage and Custody Infrastructure
Max Linden, Founder and CEO of lemon.markets, said, “We’re excited to partner with Optio Incentives, a European leader in employee compensation solutions. This partnership highlights how lemon.markets can enable a wide range of software-driven investment use cases. Supporting a German DAX-listed company underlines the operational, technical, and regulatory strength of our platform.”
Optio Incentives works with companies preparing for public listing as well as those already listed, providing tools for managing global share plans. The company operates across 15 stock exchanges and serves more than 500 clients. The integration with lemon.markets streamlines the handling of employee shares via a single API, automating execution, custody, and tax handling for HR and finance teams.
Christoffer Herheim, CEO at Optio Incentives, commented, “By combining Optio Incentives’ expertise in equity compensation with lemon.markets’ modern brokerage and custody infrastructure, we are providing an improved experience for our German customers. Germany is a key market for us, and this collaboration allows us to further our mission of making equity-based compensation more accessible – by building a solution that is not only efficient, but also adapted to local requirements and realities.”
Germany continues to lag behind other European markets in employee share plan adoption due to regulatory complexity and technical fragmentation. The partnership addresses these structural hurdles by offering a fully integrated digital solution designed specifically for the German market. lemon.markets’ infrastructure is already used by institutions such as BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, and supports custody and trade execution for stock-based investment products.
The partnership also signals an expansion in lemon.markets’ brokerage-as-a-service offering, as it moves beyond traditional retail use cases to support enterprise-grade infrastructure for corporate equity plans. The company aims to power 100 million brokerage accounts over the next decade and has raised more than €28 million from investors including Creandum, Lakestar, Lightspeed, CommerzVentures, and System.one.
The new integrated solution is already in use by clients in Germany and is expected to scale with listed firms across Europe.
